To run graphical or GUI applications while using WSL, you first need to map a drive to the following network share:
\\ncdc-smb.m.storage.umich.edu\caen-linux-apps
To do this, right-click the Windows Start menu, and select File Explorer:
![](https://teamdynamix.umich.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=59fc386e-5262-4851-be00-41b9ea20f6b6.png&beidInt=2)
Right-click the Network folder on the left, and select Map network driveā¦
![](https://teamdynamix.umich.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=34851f7a-ad9e-4ea8-abd3-903561c7caf4.png&beidInt=2)
From here, you can assign a drive letter to CAEN's remote desktop environmnt. Copy the directory address described above into the Folder line, as shown below (paste)
![](https://teamdynamix.umich.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=497b0123-3902-4213-a4e0-66048a7692fa.png&beidInt=2)
Click Finish, and you can see all of the applications available to run through WSL:
![](https://teamdynamix.umich.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=c1f77cdb-44dc-453e-b5f7-cbff3eb744b6.png&beidInt=2)
To run an application, you must first mount the Z: drive (or whichever drive letter you selected above). Run WSL2, as descried here.
Next, we must mount our Z: drive to a mount folder. For example, /mnt/apps or /mnt/z. In this example, we will use /mnt/apps. In the root directory (/), run the following commands:
mkdir /mnt/apps
mount -t drvfs Z: /mnt/apps
cd /mnt/apps
To confirm that this has worked properly, you can run the command ls, and make sure that you get a list of application folders (these should be the same as appeared in the files app before).
![](https://teamdynamix.umich.edu/TDPortal/Images/Viewer?fileName=ec4648bf-1070-4162-9c35-890c48594290.png&beidInt=2)
Running Apps
To run an app, you must first add a username using the following command:
useradd username
Next, run the user with sudo privileges:
su username
Finally, run an application executable by simply typing in the file path to the executable. For example, to run "vscode" you might execute the following:
/mnt/apps/vscode-1.70.2/code/code